Fuzz/Furry Text Effect (Works great as Grass!)

In this tutorial, I will show you a how to create a fuzzy text effect using a simple technique and a custom brush. This tutorial is written for users who have a basic understanding of the tools and techniques in Photoshop.

The Final Image

This is what we will be creating:

Step 1: Setting Up the Document

Create a new document that is 1100 x 500px and fill with a brown color. For this image, I used a radial gradient to give the image a slight vignette.

Step 2: Typing the Text

Select the Type Tool (T) and use a bold font to type anything you want. I’m using Arial Black set to a dark green color (#232B1E).

Step 3: Rasterizing Type

To rasterize the font, right click on the text layer and select Rasterize Type

Step 4: Rounding Out the Text

To round out the sharp edges, apply the Median Filter (Filter>Noise>Median) with a setting of 14 px.

Step 5: Setting Up the Colors

Set your foreground/background color to the following (this will be necessary for our custom brush to work properly):

Step 6: Creating a Brush

Now, we want to add some fuzz to our text. To begin, we need to create a new brush. Open the Brushes Panel (F5) and use the following settings:

Here are samples of the brush strokes using a pen tablet. If you dont have a tablet, go back in to your brush settings and go to the Shape Dynamics tab and set the Size Jitter’s Control to “Fade” with a setting of 35 or so.

We’ve made grass!

As you see the brush we’ve created allows the base of the stroke to be darker than the tip. This is important as it will mimic natural lighting.

Step 7: Starting The Fuzz

Create a new layer called ‘Fuzz Outside’ and start to draw in to fuzz, always starting your stroke from the base and moving out. you want to stay on the edge of the text for the first round.

Finish each letter:

Make it quicker!

To make this go quicker, copy and paste similar letters (as I did with the letter ‘Z’)

Step 8: Adding More Fuzz

Create a new layer called ‘Fuzz Middle’ and change your background color to a lighter shade of green. Start to make shorter strokes more inside of each letter as shown. These strokes should overlap some of the initial strokes.

Pen Tablet vs. Mouse

If you aren’t using a pen tablet, you may have to adjust the bush’s Size Jitter in the Shape Dynamics tab and Background/Foreground Jitter in the Color Dynamics to get the right length of stroke with the right amount of color fade.

Finish each letter:

Step 9: Adding Even More Fuzz

Create a new layer called ‘Fuzz Inside’. This time, make a few short strokes completely inside each letter as filler. It is not necessary to make alot of strokes. We will use a simple technique to add filler to the gaps.

Finish each letter:

Step 10: Adding a Blur

Select your text layer and give it a Gaussian Blur of about 3 px.

Step 11: Finishing The Fuzz

To complete the fuzz, we need to Add Noise set to 38%, Give it a Gaussian Blur of 1.3 px, and adjust the Levels (Ctrl + L) slightly to increase the contrast of the noise.

Add a drop shadow to the Text layer:

Your image should resemble this:

Step 12: Starting the Highlights

If you want, you can add a highlight around the edge of the text to make it pop more. to do this, select all 3 of your ‘Fuzz…’ layers and merge them to a new layer.

Step 13: Drawing Highlights

Next, Create a new Layer called ‘Highlights’ and with the color set to white, draw where you want the highlight to go.

Step 14: Adjusting the Low Lights

Adjust the Blending Mode of the ‘Highlights’ layer to Overlay and make this layer a clipping layer to the newly merged Fuzz layer

Step 15: Adjusting the Low Lights

To Finish, just give the ‘Highlights’ layer a large Gaussian Blur. You’re Done!

Thank you for sharing this tutorial. It is short and simple to understand. No mumbo, jumbo. I do not know how to use Photoshop much, with the screenshot, it just opened up the world of PS to me. Thank you.

I love it. My only question is…how do you get the brush to go in the right direction to go along the top, down the sides and across the bottom. It seems as though it would just be upright. Yes, I’m a new*be…thank you!

He is not using a stamp type brush where you just click with the mouse to make a shape. He is using the brush tool like a paint brush with brush dynamics set…. in this case, a simple round 3 px. (with a mouse you would have to click and keep it clicked while moving the mouse the direction you want the stroke to go)

With these type brushes, you draw with the brush same as you would draw with a RL paint brush or pencil, and that gives you the direction. The brush dynamics cause each stroke to taper to a point, and also have the graduated color.

Nice tutorial – I have seen similar text effects before but this one is quite simple and gives a similar effect, although it looks a little bit plastic I think it works really well, what would of really finished it off is adding a earthy/grunge brown background. I am looking forward to trying the tutorial out myself. Thanks for sharing.

I do not Understand :
Here are samples of the brush strokes using a pen tablet. If you dont have a tablet, go back in to your brush settings and go to the Shape Dynamics tab and set the Size Jitter’s Control to “Fade” with a setting of 35 or so.

I’m pretty tired of all of these “create a (insert random object/scene)” tuts that are appearing on websites like this and especially PSDTuts, and these tuts rarely contain techniques that can be taken away at the end.

But when something like this comes along it’s a breath of fresh air, a tutorial that actually tackles specific techniques, and though the final product may not be applicable to many other situations, the steps covered actually help broaden your thinking of certain tools, and compositing techniques. More tutorials like this are needed.